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The team is joined by Guest Kats Rosie Burbidge, Stephen Jones, Mathilde Pavis, and Eibhlin Vardy, and by InternKats Verónica Rodríguez Arguijo, Hayleigh Bosher, Tian Lu and Cecilia Sbrolli.

Wednesday, 29 March 2017

Opening the door for new legislation,the EU Trade Secrets Directive may proveto create a busy year for Member States

Dark clouds rolled into London today. Plainly fitting given the news of the Article 50 trigger. So while a generation of stomachs continue to churn in the wake of an unplanned and, for her generation, unwanted exit from the EU, the AmeriKat turned to happier news from her European friends. The IPKat's Danish friends Sture Rygaardand Emil Jurcenoksfrom Plesner report on the exciting new national trade secrets law that will come into effect following the EU Trade Secrets Directive. Sture and Emil report:

"In Denmark, the EU Trade Secrets Directive which came into force on 5 July 2016 (as reported on the IPKat here), will be implemented in an entirely new and independent act on trade secrets.

Although we have yet to see the proposal for the new act (which we cannot wait to get our paws on), the implementation of the directive

will introduce a legal definition of trade secrets (which does not exist in Denmark today);

is expected to improve the right holder's possibilities of being awarded damages in case of unlawful acquisition, use or disclosure of trade secrets, as it follows from Article 14 of the Directive that the court when setting damages should also be able to take into ac-count any unfair profits made by the infringer, which is not possible under the current rules (as opposed to damages for IP infringements governed by the IP Enforcement Directive);

is expected to lead to new, clearer rules concerning preservation of confidentiality of trade secrets in the course of legal proceedings. The present rules do not allow for a guarantee of confidentiality of trade secrets submitted in court proceedings and do not allow for limiting the access to trade secrets to a limited number of persons; and

may make it possible to obtain measures for preservation of evidence (search and seizure orders), if the right holder can render it probable that an unlawful acquisition, use and/or disclosure of trade secrets has occurred or will occur, which is today only possible in case of infringement of intellectual property rights (all Kats know that the difficulties connected with obtaining the necessary evidence are, in practice, one of the main reasons right holders often decide not to pursue misappropriation of trade secrets. During a meeting at the Patent and Trademark Office, these GuestKats therefore meowed that the office should consider to either extend the existing rules on preservation of evidence regarding intellectual property rights or adopt a similar set of rules, which the office promised to consider).

The proposal for the new act is supposed to be published just before or after the summer break, and the final act is expected to be adopted with effect as of 9 June 2018, i.e. the date of the deadline for implementation of the directive."

Like in the US, these are exciting times for trade secrets in Europe. The AmeriKat will be back to report on other Member States efforts in implementing the EU Trade Secrets Directive.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"So while a generation of stomachs continue to churn in the wake of an unplanned and, for her generation, unwanted exit from the EU"

The only age group that overwhelmingly voted remain was the 18-24 age group. I am fairly certain the Amerikat is not a part of this age group. The 25-34 and the 35-44 age groups were much more evenly split. There are and were plenty of younger people that want the UK to leave the EU. As unpalatable as it may a significant proportion of the Amerikat's generation are in favour of Brexit. Simply blaming the older generations for Brexit is not only unfair, it is incorrect.

p.s. I say this as a 33 year old who very strongly wants the UK to remain in the EU

RE: So while a generation of stomachs continue to churn in the wake of an unplanned and, for her generation, unwanted exit from the EU

It might be worthwhile to mention that Brexit is a long-term politics for The United Kingdom. For citizens, 'long-term' means (1) certainty about long-term employment perspectives, (2) certainty and value of their house mortgages, (3) prospectives in paying education for their children and healthcare in older age.

In that respect, older generations have already a picture of those long-term factors, while younger generations, due to young age, can only build prognoses - some of them might be correct, another completely wrong.

In fact, voting for Brexit represent the general attitude to the future, where younger people tend to be more optimistic about the future than older ones who rely more on facts and experience of the past.

However, there is one point on which all generations seem to agree: it's impossible to build long-term plans without having control over the economic and social rules that will apply in this long term. Brexit is politics directed on gaining control over long-term economic, financial, and social rules that will apply to the United Kingdom.

Since it's a law Blog, and for Amerikat in particular, Brexit is a revision of the legal framework of cooperation with EU countries. It's in no way a step aside of this cooperation as such. Therefore, it would be beneficial for all parties to see Brexit as development for Europe rather than as any step back to the past which is just not possible.

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